


Colors

by RipUpTheEnding



Series: This is longing [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Longing, M/M, Mild Blood, Self-Hatred, casturbation, pain play, spiteful masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RipUpTheEnding/pseuds/RipUpTheEnding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Human feelings are complex...</p><p>Cas was surprised at first how difficult is was for him to unweave the tapestry of these human emotions. He is an angel after all; he's existed since the beginning of recorded history, since before even. He's seen the birth and death of stars. The rise and fall of empires. He's a multidimensional wavelength of intent that the human mind can only comprehend as a mixture of colors. And yet emotions, such basic human things, were beyond him. It wasn’t long before he learned the fallacy in his premise. That human emotions were, in fact, so complex, that most Angels would never be able to understand them.</p><p>Cas is one of those rare Angels, who through luck, or perhaps curse (as he tells himself on the especially difficult days) is able to make some sense out of feelings. But even after all his time on earth, the bonds he's formed, his brief stint as a human, he’s still only just beginning to understand. Only just picking out one color—one thread of one color—in the grand tapestry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colors

It always starts at the base of his spine. A tiny little tingle, almost painful, that feels like a thing called pins and needles he learned about after his first night as a human. From there it spreads, upward and outward. Snakes along his spine and over the surrounding muscles, takes root and holds on. Envelops him like Kudzu until this sensation is all that he is, all that he feels. From there it works its way deeper, into his blood and his nerve endings where it explodes and rushes into his extremities. Makes him shudder and shake and gasp for breath even though his vessel doesn’t require oxygen to survive. But he sucks it in anyway, despite telling himself it’s unnecessary. This thing runs deeper than his own, vast intellect, taps into the essence of human instinct. Takes over.

It’s only then that the feeling finds its way to the base of his skull, seeps in enough for him to finally process it with a sliver of rational thought.

Longing. This is longing.

With everyone else these feelings start in the skull; with the rational processing and intellect. They never move beyond that tiny inkling of need. With Dean, it always starts at the base of his spine, always leaves him lightheaded and jittery and oversensitive. Makes his vessel do things that he doesn’t tell it to do. Things he actively tells it not to do. Things he doesn’t understand. And it makes him… _want_ things. Things an angel should not even understand, let alone _feel._

Objectively, that should have been his first clue.

It’s such an obvious one now that he knows what to look for. So clear to Cas that Dean’s longing is a different sort from everyone else's and nearly always has been. But back in the beginning when it was all he could do to navigate a corporeal presence in the universe, these differences were trivial. A quirk of his weak and mortal human body. A holdover from the bond the two forged when he rescued Dean from hell, rebuilt him atom by atom. It was something Cas would learn to overcome with time.

He didn’t.

 _Human feelings are complex,_ Cas reflects as he sits on the bed of yet another forgettable motel, and fights against the intense longing and the urges it produces in his vessel. _His body,_ he corrects himself, peeling off the coat that’s become his signature and his shield. It’s his body now, belongs to him in every way. And these feelings are his too now, even though he still struggles to comprehend them.

Cas was surprised at first how difficult is was for him to unweave the tapestry of these human emotions. He is an angel after all; he's existed since the beginning of recorded history, since before even. He's seen the birth and death of stars. The rise and fall of empires. He's a multidimensional wavelength of intent that the human mind can only comprehend as a mixture of colors. And yet emotions, such basic human things, were beyond him. It wasn’t long before he learned the fallacy in his premise. That human emotions were, in fact, so complex, that most Angels would never be able to understand them.

Cas is one of those rare Angels, who through luck, or perhaps curse (as he tells himself on the especially difficult days) is able to make some sense out of feelings. But even after all his time on earth, the bonds he's formed, his brief stint as a human, he’s still only just beginning to understand. Only just picking out one color—one _thread_ of one color—in the grand tapestry.

The longing, the same longing he feels right now, the same longing tearing him apart with want, was the first feeling he picked apart. Despite his original assessment, he eventually came to the conclusion that Dean’s longing _was_ different. Much like humans interpret Cas in terms of color, he has learned to do the same with feelings. Unlike the vibrant green he feels from Sam and recently, Claire, Dean's longing has always burned; hot and orange like flame.

It’s the porn movie, the one with the babysitter and the pizza man, that first tips him off. That tells him the differences in longing he feels from Dean are more than an accident. That the differences mean something. Something powerful. Something… _intoxicating._

Dean calls his vessel’s reaction a “boner.” Cas calls it inconvenient, uncomfortable, and hours later when it still hasn’t gone away, Dean blushes and calls it “fucking inappropriate.” Tells him to go take care of the damn thing, not to come back until it’s gone. And after a few fumbling tries, Cas does just that. He’s an angel in a confusing body, he isn’t stupid. Even though he doesn’t understand why his vessel is behaving this way, he knows what to do about it. He just hadn’t seen the point until Dean practically threw him out of the Impala and his boner _still_ refused to go away on its own.

Cas knew what to expect when he touched himself. He knew that his vessel would experience some sort of heightened sensation. That, from all accounts he would enjoy the experience, maybe even want to repeat it (though he had his doubts), and that the height of the experience would be the most pleasurable. He knew the most effective way to move his hand to bring about the quickest completion. He knew roughly how much seed his vessel would produce. He planned every second before he took himself in hand.

He did not plan what happens next. The prickle at the base of his spine. The slowly building heat that works its way through his vessel into every cell and nerve. The way his own touch lights him on fire from the inside out. How at the height of his pleasure, Dean comes to his mind, filling every part of him until he’s fit to burst. And then he does because this is it. This feeling. This glorious feeling. Cas felt it before. It’s as familiar to him now as his own vessel. The heat and desire that overtakes him every time Dean longs for him.

Cas spills hot and heavy over his hand, thick ropes of come that never seems to end. His body shakes and he gasps as he works himself through the onslaught of emotions, as he finally realizes what this feeling is. What he feels when Dean longs for him that he never feels coming from anyone else.

Lust. Dean is lusting. For him. For Cas.

And though he hadn’t realized before this moment that Dean is attracted to male bodies, Cas is unable to deny it. He knows, without a doubt that he’s interpreted the situation correctly. That he has, for the first time, interpreted a human emotion correctly.

Even now, after the passage of so many years, when the longing burns so hot and powerfully that Cas feels as if he might not survive, he knows that he interpreted the longing correctly. That Dean lusted for him, _still_ lusts for him, as Cas has come to lust for Dean. It happens much more often nowadays, after Cas came back from the dead, after purgatory. After the Mark and the Attack Dog spell and the release of the Darkness. Cas tries to resist it now that he understands. Tries to fight back the rush of blood to his cock, and when that fails, he fights the urge to touch himself. Cas knows objectively that his body is a good one, attractive. But he also knows that this is as far as Dean’s longing for him runs. There is too much baggage between them, two many betrayals and grievous errors of judgment on Cas’s part for Dean to even feel for him in anyway besides the physical. For Dean to ever feel for Cas the way that Cas feels for him. To use Dean’s private thoughts for this, to think of Dean in this way as he brings himself to pleasure is yet another betrayal on Cas’s already shamefully long list.

But Cas is not as strong as he once was. He’s more human now than Angel and no matter how much he fights it, no matter how much he knows he’ll hate himself when it’s over, no matter how painful it will be to avoid Dean and wallow in his shame, he knows that in the end, he will give in. He always gives in.

Even, when he knows how it will go, he doesn’t give in right away. It’s become a game of sorts, a masochistic one, to see how long he can make himself wait. How much he can make himself suffer. How close he can bring himself to the edge without the blessed comfort of his hand. And the times he’s unable to wait long enough, to punish himself enough (it’s arbitrary, but he doesn’t let himself think about that. The Winchesters taught him well), he refuses to let his hand be even a small comfort.

Tonight is one of those times. Cas grabs himself roughly and squeezes to the point of pain, just on the good side of the pleasure pain line. And then he squeezes harder. He hisses. Grits his teeth. Gives himself a few quick tugs. He’s not using lube, not this time, and the slide of his hand burns, a painful friction that’s more likely to make him cry than come. But he doesn’t let up. He keeps pulling and tugging until his cock hurts so much it deflates a little. He digs his thumb nail into his slit until he cries out, a few salty tears rolling down his cheek on landing on his lips. Licking them again, he dig his thumb nail in deeper and coaxes out a few more fat tears.

His is full on crying when he feels Dean’s longing shift. It vibrates through Cas’s body like a tuning fork struck on a table, and he does his best to match this new tempo. This new level of longing. If Cas has to guess he’s say that Dean is close, probably fucking into his fist now as he chases his releases. Cas allow himself to do the same. To rock his hips, to thrust through the painfully tight circle of his hand, to thumb the at the spongy head, rub in precome and the little bit of blood from where he jabbed his thumb nail in too hard. For just a few moments he allows himself to have this. To feel the pleasure and the need building inside of his body. To anticipate the rush of endorphins when he finally tips over the edge and let’s go. He brings himself right there, right to that edge. Tilts. Wobbles there. And then, just as he’s about to fall into the endless abyss he yanks himself back. Squeezes at the base of his cock until he’s in so much pain he’ll probably need to use his grace to come anytime soon. But Cas isn’t going to do that, because here is yet another rule, another arbitrary one, but a rule nonetheless. He’s only allowed to touch himself while thinking of Dean, to come while thinking of Dean, as long as Dean is doing the same things thinking about Cas. Once Dean is done then Cas is too, regardless of whether Cas comes or not.

And Cas doesn’t make it easy for himself. Why would he? This too, like waiting to touch himself in the first place, is an exercise in masochism. If he’s going to come, if he’s going to find any pleasure at all, it’s going to pleasure that he actually deserves. Pleasure he works for, that he fights for tooth and nail, through the countless obstacles he places before himself. It’s bad enough that he uses Dean to begin with. That he doesn’t fight off the surge of lust and leave Dean to his own devices. He will not bring himself to completion at the expense of Dean. At least that’s what he tells himself when the shame becomes too much, when he can’t drink enough alcohol for his angel body to fight off his very human emotions. When it’s dark and he’s alone and his brain won’t keep silent.

Worthless. Expendable. Unloved. Tool.

He fists himself again, harder than before, and tugs until the skin is raw. Until he’s raw, right down to his very essence. Despite the pain, he feels it happening. There’s heat low in his belly, and he continues to pump his hand, to stoke the heat until it bursts into flame. But Cas doesn’t come. Instead Dean’s longing surge up inside like a raging forest fire. It consumes every in it’s path, burns it all down to the ground with swirling, multicolored flames. It punches the unnecessary breathe from Cas’s chest and leaves him gasping, too overwhelmed by the plethora of emotions to even care that he didn’t come, and that he now won’t.

This is something else Cas has learned recently: that feelings can be more than one thing. That they exist in multitudes as vast as the stars and just as unfathomable. He has only just learned to read one color in a feeling and the discovery that each color was more, was multifaceted like a gemstone reflecting all the colors of the rainbow, startled him. Through practice he’s been able to pick out some colors in some other people’s feelings, but Dean, as always is different. Dean contains more layers than Cas has ever seen, and this feeling, this fire, is no exception. The longing is deep orange, the color of the fire it creates, highlighted with varying shades of red and yellow. There at the base, Cas is able to make out something more, another color that flashes briefly into existence before hiding away again.

Once again Cas gasps for air he doesn’t need, his equally irrelevant heart, pounding in his chest.

This color, despite it’s fleeting appearance, gives life to all of the other colors.

Pink. The color of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! So. What did you think? :-D
> 
> If you're interested in any of my writing, original or fanfic, you can find out more here: [LivMasters.com/Me](http://livmasters.com/me/)
> 
> If you want to chat, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/RipUpTheEnding) where I spend my free time obsessing over all the things I love.
> 
> Come say hi and join the madness <3
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://ripuptheending.com/).


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